Hedge fund activist favorite Hertz Global Holdings announced it will restate its 2012 and 2013 annual and quarterly financial statements to correct accounting errors. It previously announced plans to restate 2011 financials. The car rental giant said it won’t filed updated financials until at least mid-2015. It also said it won’t spin off its equipment rental business until it completes its accounting review and files the revised statements. The company announced the spinoff back in March.
An investor in the stock says the announcement is not surprising and that “people factored in the accounting issues.” In September, Hertz agreed to a deal with Carl Icahn, who was given three seats on the board. One month later, Jana Partners’ Barry Rosenstein boosted his firm’s stake in Hertz to 7 percent of the total outstanding. Shortly afterward, the New York hedge fund firm fired off a letter to the board of directors of Hertz urging it to hire former Dollar Thrifty CEO Scott Thompson to fill the open position of chief executive officer. In September, Mark Frissora resigned as CEO of Hertz, which acquired Dollar Thrifty two years ago.
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There is no doubt that the $290 million that Pimco’s Bill Gross reportedly earned in 2013 is a lot of money. However, you won’t find the hedge fund community oohing and aahing. If he were a hedge fund manager, he wouldn’t even have qualified for Alpha’s annual Rich List ranking of the top-earning hedge fund managers last year. In 2013 you had to have earned at least $300 million to rank among the top-25. But Gross would have topped our second team, however.
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Tiger Global Management has made yet another private investment. The New York-based hedge fund and private equity firm was one among several existing investors to participate in a new $50 million round of financing for Craftsy, which offers online classes on knitting, cake decorating, sewing and a number of other arts and crafts-related hobbies.
Meanwhile, in the third quarter Tiger Global more than quadrupled its stake in Hertz, elevating it to its sixth largest individual stock position. Its largest new position was Bitauto Holdings, a Chinese internet company that provides information and marketing services for the local auto industry. It is now the firm’s third largest individual stock holding.
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John Griffin’s Blue Ridge Capital’s U.S. equity portfolio fell to $8.4 billion at the end of the third quarter, down nearly 12 percent from the June period. Its largest holdings are Actavis and Charter Communications. In the third quarter, it bought 1.5 million shares of Alibaba.
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Perry Capital founder Richard Perry boosted his stake in Herbalife by 39 percent, to 5.575 million shares, making it his fourth largest holding as of the end of the third quarter.
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Scott Ferguson’s Sachem Head Capital Management has changed its strategy on playing Valeant Pharmaceuticals’ hostile bid for Allergan. The one-time Pershing Square Capital Management partner in the third quarter bought 375,000 shares of Actavis, which is reportedly in talks to buy Allergan. The stock was his biggest new purchase in the third quarter and now accounts for about 10 percent of his stock portfolio, roughly the same as his Allergan stake. However, in the third quarter he unloaded his entire stake in Valeant.
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Louis Bacon’s Moore Capital Management had about $4.3 billion invested in U.S. stocks at the end of the third quarter. This was down slightly from the previous quarter but down about one-third from year-end, when the macro and multistrategy firm had about $6.4 billion in U.S. equities.
